By David Futrelle
Australians learned a bit more today about the motivations of Michael James Holt, a wannabe mass killer who appeared in a New South Wales court for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to an assortment of weapons charges. Holt, a Hitler-loving white supremacist obsessed with guns, admitted to planning a mass shooting at an Australian mall.
One of the sources of Holt’s murderous rage? According to a text message from Holt that was read aloud in court today, he was angry that he couldn’t get a date.
“Gonna have to just start killing people if I don’t get laid soon,” Holt wrote. And he apparently meant that quite literally. In another message, he declared that “my hate increases every day, my anger exponentially so.”
It would be nice if we could dismiss Holt as little more than a weird aberration — an neo-Nazified Australian wannabe version of Elliot Rodger, the self-pitying misogynist who murdered six people in Isla Vista California in 2014 as an act of symbolic “retribution” against the women of the world for not spontaneously offering him sex.
But unfortunately, as long-time readers of this blog know well, there’s an entire movement of men out there who think like Holt and Rodger — men who lash out at the world because they feel that women are unfairly denying them sex. In online forums like the Incels subreddit, these self-professed “involuntary celibates” nurture their resentment against women and stoke one another’s rage.
More than a few incels have embraced “Saint” Elliot Rodger as an incel martyr — thought some don’t think he killed enough people to be a true hero — and it’s probably only a matter of time until they embrace Holt as one of them as well. Indeed, a handful of Reddit incels already have.
For more on Incels, check out my numerous posts on the subject in the We Hunted the Mammoth archives. I’ve also written more than a few posts on Elliot Rodger and incels’ posthumous embrace of “Saint Elliot.”
H/T — Raw Story
Arpaio thinks he won. He hasn’t. This isn’t over.
These jerks are only postponing the inevitable. Arpaio will be punished. He’s hated and he will be looking over his shoulder.
We will vote the reactionaries out and the old bigoted generations are dying out. The new demographics are Progressive.
Cops are not above the law! We the people will make sure of that.
There is stuff being done to fight gerrymandering. Progressive WILL take back the Govt. and we will MAKE AMERICA TRULY GREAT AGAIN and the few reactionaries will have to SUCK IT and bow before Lady Liberty.
@ Ooglyboogles, 7:01 pm
That’s an interesting question.
I was in junior high/high school during the school shooting “epidemic” of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I was an angry, violent young man, and one of the things I thought about every time one happened was “I would have done better,” meaning, I would have killed more people. And yet, whenever I actually thought about doing something like that, I couldn’t separate the idea of going on a killing spree from the fact that I’d be killing people who I mostly didn’t have anything against. Yes, there were a couple of people I hated enough that I might have been able to kill them, but I couldn’t really imagine murdering most people.
In other words, I couldn’t forget that “the masses” were people. I really don’t know where I learned that, but someone, somewhere must have taught it to me. I wasn’t a part of my school curriculum, and I sure as hell didn’t learn it at home or in church, but someone must have drilled that into me at some point.
So, I suspect the answer to your question (and, my apologies if it was intended to be rhetorical) would be that people like the subject of the OP were never taught empathy. Teaching empathy really ought to be the core principle of education, and as long as it isn’t taught we’re going to be cranking out people like Michael James Holt like well-oiled machine.
@opium4themasses
The key point is that there was nothing under fair use, nothing reworked, parodied, or altered, just the video. As long as that point is considered valid I’m pretty sure Sargon’s gonna lose.
@Spukikitty
As I ask Trumpists, what do you mean ‘again’? This is a nation founded on slavery and genocide, both of which are perpetuated to this day. And that’s not to mention our frankly awful history regarding disability, neurodivergence, and queer identities. Indeed, the whole concept of national greatness is intrinsically rooted in an imperialist mindset which is one of the seedbeds of fascism.
Gorka RESIGNED?!
Holy BALLS! David, keep posting weird pictures of these ghouls!
At this point, being an Incel should be enough to prevent someone from getting a gun, just like any domestic abuse conviction.
@ C.S.Strowbridge
Presumably you mean self-identified “incels”, not just people who for whatever reason can’t get laid.
For the first half of my life (roughly, based on my current age) I wanted a girlfriend but for various situational and psychological reasons didn’t find one. While I would get peeved at women who I interpreted as “liking” me only to be proven wrong, I never once considered physical violence against them, let alone a random sample of womankind.
As ‘sunnysombrera’ said, these bastards made a choice to magnify understandable frustration into utterly disproportionate rage, and direct it violently at random scapegoats.
Still Fiqah:
Ooooh, do Stephen Miller next!
I’m honestly not a fan of these pictures (but hey, it’s not my blog, and David gets to post whatever he wants), but if they make fascists resign from the Administration, then bring on the weird image filters I say!
As for the fucking cowardly Arpaio pardon, the unspeakably rotten transgender military ban (so many good people, including friends of mine, having their careers and lives ruined for having trusted in the promises given to them and dared to come out), and Texas drowning/being blown away in the latest installment of “yeah, climate change sure is a hoax”… I am just too depressed to even contemplate it. Fucking hell.
Edit: ninja’ed by David himself. That’s what I get for not reading on to the next post.
@Micharion Not specifically an “admission of guilt” in the US. It is in theory possible to pardon someone for something they haven’t been prosecuted for. It’s a significant power, that most Presidents use for humanitarian reasons (sentence being way too long for the actual crime, crime no longer considered a crime, that sort of thing).
A person _can_ refuse to be pardoned if they wish to avoid being compelled to answer a 5th amendment protected question (Burdick vs. …) in which a journalist, pardoned for publishing a leak, pled the fifth to questions about source of that leak. This is one reason it’s so hard to get sources from a journo if they don’t want to tell you.
The state civil and criminal cases (if any) may still proceed, depending on exactly how the courts decide Trump’s pardon letter reads. I believe the current reading is, Pres can only pardon Fed charges, so anything brought in State court can still be litigated.
(I’m not a lawyer, but I follow @popehat on twitter)
This whole thing is made more complex by the fact that most Pres pardons don’t get challenged, so any attempt to get around this one will require new, and mostly untested, legal theories.
Why is this man finding it so hard to get sex? Prostitution is legal in New South Wales, the brothels have reviews on Google just like a regular Indian restaurant.
The people that David profiles on this blog have internalized an extremely narrow and ridiculous definition of manhood. Worse they can’t really imagine a worthwhile existence outside of that. So the incels think they are being denied something extremely important when they can’t live out their pornographic fantasy. Being angry is a natural reaction to the percieved slight, though since anger is the masculine emotion, and since this version of masculinity is defined largely in contrast to women, exaggerated hatred of women helps to compensate for what they think they’re missing.
They’re obsessed with being the mythical “alpha male” and “getting laid” is a big part of that, but so is rage.
I hadn’t heard about Joe Arpaio until just now. I googled the name; reading LA Times article. It unfortunately makes perfect sense for Trump to do this. They have both emphasized their desire to stop illegal immigrants, they share that agenda, and maybe some narcissism as well. Trump has relied on the art of distraction before. So yeah, Trump is hoping his anti-immigrant base will be energized, but the moderate majority will be too distracted to notice.
As awful as this is, there is a silver lining. Trump’s order was written like “Hey, Military Brass guys, you are permitted to ban Transpeople if you wish.”
The Military Brass has clearly stated that they never had any intention of heeding it. Thus; The Military Ban is another piece of hot air to give Trump supporters the illusion that Trump’s doing something.
Concerning Arpaio; He has a horrid rep, is no longer a Sheriff or….as far as I know….even has a real job, he can be sued into oblivion and, even with junk like gerrymandering, the majority of voters are so disgusted that 2018 & 2020 are bound to have the highest turnout in years….and Absentee/Early voting is a THING! Why be a slave to a machine that may be hacked when you can leave a paper trail and not be bound by a set day at a set place and time?
There needs to be a BIG Absentee/Early-Voting thing among Progressives. Polling places tend to be few and far between and often obscured (a vote-blocking tactic). Many also have to work on Election Day. Many are disabled or lack transportation.
Again. There’s a paper-trail and you can’t hack paper. If one joker tries to toss ballots in the trash as a fraud tactic, people will notice and make a noise.
I have to confess that you do have a point. The United States was built by bigotry on a land stolen from Indigenous Nations that resided here for millennia.
I also agree that Nationalism is absurd and the U.S. Govt. has had a history of….and continues to be….run by imperialist jerks and commit acts of jerkassery (like overthrowing democratically-elected heads of state because they went against the interests of the Robber Barons and installing tyrants like Pinochet or The Shah of Iran in their place).
One might even see Russia’s meddling in our elections as a minor Karmic payback.
In my effort to reclaim that Trumpy slogan (‘Make America Great Again’), I should have stated “Make America Great For All”.
Progressives of the Patriotic variety….who embrace the tropes of “America-ness”….are doing so because….while they are aware of the country’s bigoted foundations….understand that the IDEALS written in The Constitution and pronounced in the rhetoric is resoundingly all about Equality, Opportunity, Liberty, Justice for All.
We know America is an Immigrant Nation founded as a refuge for those from other nations “….yearning to breathe free” or “simply start a new life and career with a clean slate”.
Progressive want to make the United States MAKE GOOD on it’s promises and rhetoric. We don’t want the country to be a big fat landmass of hypocrisy.
@Spukikitty
They are not as opposed to white supremacy as they like to think.
Which state that black people are slaves, Nativeshave no rightsm and only property owing white men have the vote. Try again.
‘Liberty and Justice for All’ is from the Pledge od Allegiance, and has no force of law, the word opportunity appears nowhere in the Constitution, and that document only guarantees provisional equality for white men. (and even that guarantee is in name only and has never meaningfully been the case)
Unless they were African, or Asian, or as often as not Slavic, or, of course, members of any of the nations which were extirpated to make room for the ‘land of opportunity’.
“yearning to breathe free”, incidentally, also appears in no document with any legal force anywhere.
Then you need to start by honestly acknowledging what this country is and how it got that way. This feel good bullshit you’re peddling is just a kinder gentler Manifest Destiny.
The president can only pardon someone in a federal criminal case. There were a few petitions for Obama to pardon someone convicted in a state case, but he couldn’t legally do that.
The pardon power itself is archaic. When the US Constitution was written, you could be sentenced to (mandatory) hanging for fairly minor offenses in some states, and for some states that was the punishment for every felony. The pardon power was a check against Congress expanding the number of capital offenses, but in practice whether someone would have his or her death sentence commuted was highly subjective. People also started to notice that crime was pretty high in areas with large numbers of public executions, so people weren’t deterred by the possibility of a death sentence.
Pardons stuck around based on the idea that someone can end up with an egregiously unjust punishment, but they’re typically not used for anything like that.
Dalillama; I do confess I haven’t personally read the ENTIRE U.S. Constitution. However; I’m aware of the Bill of Rights and the subsequent Amendments that spell out Civil Rights for previously disenfranchised groups.
I am aware of the passages badmouthing Indigenous Americans but assumed that was in The Declaration of Independence.
So; You want everyone who isn’t an Indigenous American to move out of the United States? That would be logistically impossible! While I certainly support the Indigenous Peoples and see what happened to them as a massive tragedy that fills me with rage….everyone suddenly moving out….like 200-300 million people….would be ridiculous and the world economy would go loopy.
WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! The best I can do is ally myself with them and other non-whites and say to white bigots, “Stop being dicks and give these people authority and full human rights!”.
If non-Amerindians are going to squat on the Amerindian’s land WE NEED TO “PAY OUR RENT”! That’s the best we can do…..
* Give the First Americans reparations.
* Quit committing hate crimes against them.
* Quit the institutionalized ethnicism against them.
* Apologize for all our crimes and honor all treaties.
* Demand and encourage their participation in political office (especially the highest offices of the land).
* Place extra protections on places of sacred Amerindian significance and natural parks.
* Create a massive Monument/Museum/Complex to the First Americans in Washington D.C. that would make the monuments to the other guys look like Tinker Toys.
* Have an alternate Amerindian Federation exist, concurrently, within the United States. It would have the various Native Tribal National jurisdictions and co-exist and work with the U.S.A.
* Change all our currency to include all the great Native figures in American history….along with Civil Rights figures….along with the “Dead President” bunch (Pic of Native figure big in center, flanked by a ‘Dead Prez’ and a Civil Rights figure). Change the motto to E PLURIBUS UNUM along with a similar phrase agreed upon by the leaders of the different Amerindian Nations. Remove Andrew Jackson from the $20.00 bill.
* Encourage Canada, Mexico and the rest of the New World to do the same.
* Pass the E.R.A. (which should be expanded to apply to all historically marginalized groups as well as women) and impose stronger protections for all marginalized groups.
* Teach EXTENSIVELY how EVIL bigotry and bullying is in all schools.
* Stop trying to tear up a mountain in the Black Hills in a misguided homage to Crazy Horse and do all the stuff on this list, instead.
….This is the best I can come up with to make things right with the First Peoples of America!
NOTE: I use the term “Amerindian” because the Indigenous Americans actually prefer to be called “Indians”. I use “Amerindian” to differentiate from actual Indian Indians from India. I use the term “Ethnicism” instead of “Racism” because “Race” is a stupid term that separates humanity. I simply expand the meaning of “Ethnic/Ethnicity”.
OH! One more thing….
86 Columbus Day and replace it with National Indigenous Americans Day! Remove the “Pilgrim/Indian 1620 Feast” mythology from Thanksgiving and redub it The Great Thanksgiving Potlatch….it would be devoid of references to junk about Pilgrims and presented as a non-historical moment-specific thing with a strong Amerindian/Harvest Festival/Universal/America thing.
All things “Amerindian Culture” needs to be the focus of America. Even Lady Liberty could be reimagined in the American Consciousness as a Native woman with an eagle aloft in one hand, a calumet in her other arm, and a bonnet of seven feathers.
Old Glory could be given a tweak with The Sun Wheel within a Ring of Thirteen Stars within the Blue Field (the four colors representing ethnicities as well as directions/elements.
@Spuki
You should. It’s not that long, you can get it done in a few minutes. This is everyone advice, btw. If you’re a Murican, read the Constitution. And do it again every once in a while as a refresher. Fuck knows I’m overdue
As of 2016, 316m people (total 321-5 indigenous. Always hate writing that 5, so low…)
Strictly speaking, as a white person, you’re supposed to sit down, shut up, and let indigenous and other brown Muricans let you know what they want/want you to do. As you said after your listicle, that’s all you can think of. But there’s so much more to be done! It’s actually super not your job to come up with solutions. Cos, while I’d like to see some of yours come about, we’ll both have biases which color which solutions we advocate and which we even think of in the 1st place. Not bashing you for the listicle, it shows you care (and I personally find such things interesting ?). But caring only goes so far…
Some do. Some don’t
Calling racism ethnicism doesn’t make it any less bullshit. Like, you’re really missing the forest for the trees here. People who understand that race is bullshit are less likely to be racist to begin with. White people don’t hate me cos I’m West Indian or Bajan or Trini or Murican. What might be considered my ethnic identifiers. They hate me, cos I’m of a darker skin pigment than them. They’ve divided the world into the worthy grouping and the lesser groupings. The hatred is based on their race paradigm, so it’s called racism
As for your listicle, I just wanna point out that you really really don’t get to decide what to do with their culture*. We shouldn’t have Columbus Day or Thanksgiving, cos they’re holidays celebrating violence based on lies. But what should replace them or if they should be replaced at all is not up to us. Nor is what the flag should look like or what statues should be built. Again, biases. I’d never expect white Murica to put up a monument to black folks who weren’t eminently peaceful**, but shitty statues to confederate generals, leaders, and slavers are A OK. Not saying you’re like that per se, but you get the point I hope
*There is no Amerindian culture only Amerindian cultures
**I do wanna see both King memorials tho (the statue in DC and the Center down here in Atlanta. Never gotten around to it ?)
Incels are terrifying. But the fact they feel oppressed because women won’t have sex with them shows how few actual difficulties they have in their lives. Not getting laid is not fucking oppression!
Perhaps I’m misguided in my solutions but my heart’s in the right place and I agree that the people in question should have the final say in everything.
No offense; But I feel like I’m being punished for being a white ally. I feel like everything I do is never enough and nothing I say is satisfactory. It’s not enough that I’m trying as hard as I can to understand and that my heart is in the right place.
Can I help it if I’ve never been a slave, subjected to hate crimes, had my land stolen by invaders from another continent or on the wrong side of Jim Crow Laws?
You’re right; I DON’T understand what it’s like! I’ll never understand right! I confess I’ve internalized a lot of crap without knowing!
BE PATIENT WITH ME! I’M TRYING! CAN’T YOU AT LEAST BE HAPPY THAT THERE ARE WHITE PEOPLE WHO’S HEARTS ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AND WHO ARE TRYING TO BE ALLIES AND TRYING TO ATONE?! I’M SORRY IF WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THINGS EXACTLY AS THE OPPRESSED DEMOGRAPHICS DO! WE’VE NEVER LIVED IN THOSE SHOES!
GAWD! I HATE IT WHEN WHITE ALLIES ARE SCARED OFF BECAUSE THEIR SYMPATHETIC NEED TO HELP OUT AND ATONE IS NEVER ENOUGH AND EVERYTHING IS “RACIST”!
IT’S NEVER ENOUGH! NO MATTER WHAT WE DO….WE’RE OUT-OF-TOUCH AND RACIST AND EVIL AND WRONG AND WE ARE DUMBASSES AND SHOULD SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!
WELL EXCUSE ME FOR NOT BEING BLACK OR LATINO OR INDIGENOUS AMERICAN OR MID-EASTERN OR JEWISH OR ANYTHING THAT ISN’T “GENTILE WHITE PERSON”! FORGIVE ME FOR NOT EXPERIENCING “THE STRUGGLE” PERSONALLY! EXCUSE ME FOR BEING A TAD OBTUSE!
CAN’T YOU ACCEPT THAT IF A PERSON’S HEART IS GENUINELY IN THE RIGHT PLACE AND IS EAGER TO HELP OUT THAT THAT IS SUFFICIENT ENOUGH?!
ARE YOU SCARED THAT WHITE PROGRESSIVE ANTI-BIGOTS ARE ALL REALLY CONTELPRO GOONS IN SERVICE OF THE ORANGE ASSHOLE?
Also; My big loopy listicle was in response to Dallilama who saw out-of-touch bigotry where there was none and I asked them what would satisfy them! Dalliama’s attitude was basically “The United States is Pure Evil To the CORE AND SHOULD CEASE TO EXIST!” and my pointing out the good bits is misconstrued as White Supremacy!
I BELIEVE The United States, as awful as it has been, was still founded on some good principles even if it never lived by it well and I’m aware that all those phrases are from various documents and songs and such. I did not say that those quotes from The Pledge, The Statue of Liberty plaque, etc. were from the Constitution and you have to be a DUMBASS WHO CAN’T READ BETWEEN THE LINES TO THINK THAT!
Members of the privileged groups can be valid allies and fight alongside the oppressed classes! Same goes for feminism! Male Feminists, Heterosexual LGBTQ Activists and White Anti-Racists are valid!
Hey! If all whites did what you said….Sitting down and shutting up….we would be accused of being bigots who hate those unlike us!
Damned if we do damned if we don’t!
When you push away allies from the privileged demographics, you ruin your cause. When the Civil Rights movement involved whites and Jews on the side helping out, it thrived. When White allies were pushed out….like what Stokely Charmichael (I think it was him, I may be wrong) did to all those nice supportive White allies who cared about blacks and Civil Rights when he kicked them out of his organization for being white….the Civil Rights Movement floundered.
I’m by no means saying that Blacks, Native People, etc. cannot go it alone. PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME THAT IS WHAT I MEAN. What I mean is when Social Justice groups get exclusionary and antagonistic to sympathetic members of the privileged groups who realize bigotry is wrong….it makes the Group look like bigoted hypocrites and creates more bigots from the privileged group.
White/Male/Heterosexual/Non-Jewish/Non-Muslim/Non-Dominant Privileged Group Allies should not be rejected. Social change involves all of us!
We do not want to be your spokesman or take away your voice. You should be the leaders and spokes-people. We should be in the back but we shouldn’t be rejected or looked up as eternal bigots who are incapable of change!
Finally; If a person does something wrong or committed a grave sin, shouldn’t they try to undo what they can and atone for the past?
So! BE….PATIENT WITH ME….FORGIVE ME FOR NOT BEING AS ULTRA-LEFTY-IDEOLOGICALLY PURE FOR SOME FOLKS HERE!
I am a Progressive but I am an American and my approach is Moderate and Pragmatic. I am not Super-Far-Left. I am not an Anarchist. I am not a Pure-Communist! I’m sorry if we don’t all share the exact same MIND!
But I am an ally BE SATISFIED THAT I LOATHE THE FAR-RIGHT, FASCISM, THE ALT-REICH, AND BIGOTRY OF ALL KINDS AS MUCH AS YOU! MY HEART IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE! BEAR WITH ME!
Sorry for the tone but I’m frustrated.
@spukikitty
I understand you’re frustrated, but I don’t think Axe or Dalillama were personally attacking you. They both disagreed with some things you said – that’s not an attack, it’s just a difference of opinion. People can have different opinions and it’s good to discuss them because that’s what it means to be a progressive – that different points of view are allowed and we can all disagree and even argue without anyone having to be imprisoned/executed/silenced for Being Wrong.
That’s why I hate Nazis, ISIS, misogynists, the Roman Catholic Church and the British benefits system, among many others. They are all systems of thought which only allow for one point of view.
Guys; I’m sorry for the tone of the last comment. I wrote it out of frustration.
I think I understand where you’re all coming from.
I’m white and benefit from white privileged and white don’t do enough to challenge the system of white privileged enough.
And perhaps we are all INADVERTENTLY racist and benefit from the bigotry of the jerks among us.
Perhaps what whites can do is to encourage their peers to stop being bigots and to reach places of political power so they can change the laws to not favor white people.
I know you’re frustrated. WE frustrate you and come across as a bunch of condescending know-nothing-know-it-alls who do more harm than good and who are inadvertently still bigots. You’re flabbergasted that we don’t “get it”….an “it” that….to you….is so easy and obvious that you’re stunned that we can’t figure it out.
The thing is; We of the privileged group genuinely perceive reality in a much different way than you do and we never lived as you. We are all programmed with this “White/Male/Heterosexual” paradigm and never personally experienced bigotry, racism or such and are blind to privileged.
Being a woman, I am susceptible to being the target of misogyny. Yet; For me, accepting Male Allies is easy. However; For other women, it’s hard. Even then, I think to myself, a lot of guys just don’t “get it” but I do try to be somewhat willing to give a guy who’s heart’s in the right place the benefit of the doubt.
Stuff involving not being White is trickier for me. A woman may still benefit with most of what the white man benefits from. I am white. I don’t know, personally what it is like to be black, Indigenous American or whatever….thus I only can understand things from the view of an outsider looking in.
If I detected intolerance or judgment in your words where there was none, I’m EXTREMELY sorry and I’m sorry for making an ass of myself. I need a lot of self-reflection.
Forgive me.
If you live in a more liberal area, there usually aren’t any Columbus Day celebrations anymore. Occasionally there’s an Indigenous People’s Day event, but there’s a huge amount of disagreement among Native American people over whether it’s okay for white people to participate in that. I get the sense that the majority have no problem with white allies, but the idea that white people could potentially have some type of equal decision making power in the movement makes some indigenous people really uncomfortable.
Spuki, if you want to be an ally, then what you need to do is stop taking what Are and Dalli say to you as a personal attack and actually listen to what they are saying. Read what they’re saying, and look at what you have said that they’re replying to. Consider why you’re getting the replies and pushback that you are, and learn from it. It will take time, unlearning the racist, white supremacist bullshit that, as white people, we’ve been spoon fed since birth, always does. It’s hard, and it’s frustrating. But you’ll (we’ll) be better human beings for doing so. When you find yourself getting frustrated, take a break to calm down before replying.
@SpukiKitty
All I can see in those all-caps is flailing. Take a breather. Go for a walk. Come back when you’re calm. Nobody here will ask for your white guilt so there’s no need to get upset about how your guilt is not up to par. Nobody’s guilt is up to par. White guilt serves no purpose except to, perversely, make white people feel better about themselves. Don’t spread out your guilt for us and demand that it be judged. Nobody wants it.
If you want to be a good ally, your first obligation is to listen and learn, but your second obligation is to stand up to other white people when they say and do racist shit. Just like I expect men to stand up to other men when they say misogynist crap when no women are around, it is our obligation as white people to shut down the racist shit that white people say when people of color are not around. Learn to see and hear racism for what it is, and learn that the world doesn’t end if you meet a racist joke with a chilly “Racism isn’t hilarious.” The world doesn’t end if you turn a racist friend into an ex-friend.
If you’re white, you have white privilege, and that isn’t anything shameful. What’s shameful is that other people lack the same privileges, not that you have them. You can use your privilege for good, and you should. The objective is not for white privilege to go away, but for it to cease to be white privilege. It should be basic human privilege.
I’m being really gentle with you here, because I’m also white and so it’s no imposition on me. But when you flail around in all-caps about how nothing you do is ever good enough, you’re asking less privileged people to comfort you and reassure you that you’re a good-enough person, which is unfair. It’s not Axe’s job to soothe your conscience or help you process your white guilt. People of color are constantly asked to do that for white people, which is just another way that white people impose upon and oppress non-white people. You need to learn to work through that yourself, and give up your pointless guilt to become a better person.